Five Days of Flour
by Kay the Cricketed
Summary: [UKUS implied; could pass as gen-ish] England decides he's going to do one better this year and make cookies for America's birthday. The emotional repercussions resonate through them both and change everything.


**_The First Day_**

On June 30th, the nightmares began.

Hundreds of years of tradition dictated that England prepare himself for the fallout, of course. When he woke, sick to his stomach and with a sore wetness trailing down to his ear, there was already a glass of water and three aspirin sitting on his bedside table. England took the pills with shaking hands. He tried to forget the feeling of mud between his fingers and the scent of gunpowder and earthy rain. Outside, London was kind enough to have granted clear skies to her night.

He toed on his slippers and went to put on tea. The kettle was already waiting on the stove, his Darjeeling propped against the cutting board.

"Pathetic, I am," England told the lot. He twisted the stove knob, waiting for fire to catch and then dim before dropping the kettle back onto the burner.

There was an invitation, of course; it sat on the toaster. There was always an invitation. It seemed like no matter what England said, or no matter how many times he merely dropped off some paltry offerings before leaving America to his annoying, frivolous ( _hurtful_ ) festivities, the invitation would come without fail. The same kind that America probably gave all of his close friends (or not-so-close friends): a patchwork mess of glitter, glitz, and greedy expectation.

England never confirmed whether or not he'd show up. He either did or didn't. It depended on whether he felt masochistic enough once July 4th rolled around, or if self-preservation got the best of him, and sometimes, if the moon was hovering a little low, his feet took him there whether he liked it or not. America was a magnet. America was indulgence. America was filling his head at four in the morning, to the point where England thought he might open his mouth and the stars and stripes might fall out.

That bloody flag. How he hated it.

The Darjeeling helped settle his nerves. England's fingers gradually lost their trembles, and in time, his bones followed suit. The nausea dulled to a butter knife's edge. When he was finished with a second cup, he got out the ingredients for ginger snaps. Small brown cookies for winter nights, not the last day of June. Even as he snipped open the flour, England could recall how the sun used to lay its hand over the land like a caress to America's golden head, and how under that sun they'd shared ginger snaps in the dizzy-blown rye. Cookies made from real ginger stem. Iced to glimmer.

Cooking was many things to England: a friend, a sanctuary, a passion. Tonight, it was a sacrifice. Tonight, he baked and he mourned. He couldn't bring himself to taste a crumb.

 ** _The Second Day_**

He decided he would bake cookies for America's birthday.

 _Because I'm a complete dunce,_ England thought. _It's not like he ever enjoys my baking. The ungrateful brat._ Somewhere along the line, America had grown too good for home-cooked food; he'd become overly fond of what could be processed and faked. But none of his burgers ever seemed to fill him, and so he ate more and more, jubilant but needing.

There was a lesson in that, something valuable that could be said about America. England knew it could be important, but it was like reaching for something at the back of the top shelf, too high but _there_. His fingers brushed silver and then he would fall back on his heels. Another day, perhaps.

The reprieve of weather hadn't lasted long, but then London wasn't London without a touch of gray to her smile. England went out to the supermarket and bought ingredients for sugar cookies. He purchased frosting and silver bells and chocolate sprinkles and bits of peppercorn. There were puddles in the street.

July 1st, and his feet felt like they were embedded in needles.

"You don't damn well deserve this," is what England told the photograph on the entrance hall table. With a jaunty wave frozen in time, America ignored him. "If anything, I ought to get cookies that day. No one ever remembers that, though."

Still, later that night after some (a bit too much) wine, England rolled up his sleeves and began to bake.

The sugar cookies burnt. He tried to cover the black sections with the frosting, but they only crumbled under the weight. They tasted like ash on his tongue. England ate three, anyway, because it was in bad manners to waste and they weren't that bad, not really. Not up to America's standards, but what was new? Good lord, his stomach churned.

The congealed mash stuck in his throat. England swallowed the lump and whispered, "This is too hard." He wasn't sure what he was speaking about, but it must have been the truth.

It was past ten by the time he gave up. When the grandfather clock in his study intoned the hour and fifteen, England dumped the rest of the sugar cookies, or what had lived a short life as sugar cookies before their cremation, into the sink. He stomped upstairs and fell face-flat on the mattress, and that night he dreamt of the gunshot he hadn't taken.

 ** _The Third Day_**

The third day was chocolate chip. Tried and true American favorite, if England wagered correctly. He didn't care much for anything without raisins himself, but for America, and for his own preservation of mind during this trying week, England buckled down and succumbed to a mundane recipe.

He snacked on the chocolate chips while he mixed the raw eggs into the dough.

Really, if England was any kind of friend, he'd just give America the cookie dough. If England was really lucky, he'd make America happy and still manage to give the idiot salmonella. The idea was entertaining. It kept England's mouth twitching into a bare-bones smile until he remembered what it felt like to have something he'd loved ripped from his hands, to have that love returned as festering hate. ( _Be fair,_ he thought, but he didn't _want_ to be fair, not when it still hurt so.)

Three hours later, the dough idea was looking more viable.

"Why won't you rise?" England begged the lumps on the tray, stabbing at them with a toothpick. The slip of wood came away gooey once more. He jabbed at the cookies a few more times for good measure.

"Damn it to buggery," he finally said.

He tried turning the oven on higher. When the oily smoke billowed out from the tiny openings in the oven door, England got his oven mitts and slapped at the fire until it went out. He sawed at the cookies until they came away from the metal sheet, and then popped one piping hot into his mouth.

England chewed.

His vision blurred.

"Bloody smoke," he said, voice raw, and rubbed at his eyes.

 ** _The Fourth Day_**

Once, they had eaten ginger snaps underneath the sun in a field so vast that England thought America might go on forever and ever. It was under that sun that America took England's hand with his tiny, sap-sticky fingers and a smile as bright as the shallow waters of Virginia. He said something, but England never heard it.

When England woke up, the rain hit the window glass in tinny little pings.

For a long time, he laid there in his misery. Maybe it was hours. Probably it was minutes. But it was a long time, not measured in increments but in how far he managed to convince his heart to go. When at last England sat up, raking his nails through sleep-frazzled hair, he thought maybe he was ready to try again.

In his past, England had fallen to his knees just as often as he'd made others fall to theirs. He'd endured. He'd conquered. He'd softened the blow. There was a trick to that kind of survival; it was in how you breathed, how you recovered from a knock to the teeth. America was not the boy that crumpled England. He was only the boy that left him.

Still. And yet. _Still_.

England went downstairs.

 _Someday,_ he thought as he assembled the mixing bowl and whisk, numb to the senses, gaze skittering to and from the invitation that waited on the toaster, _I'm going to be able to celebrate your birthday instead of ache for it. And that's not you winning; that's me._

The rolling pin rocked gently against the uneven counter top. England set it to the side. He went to the cupboard. Opened the doors.

Once, they had eaten ginger snaps under the sun on the day that America fashioned his birthday. It wasn't July 1st, though it was in the summer. America hadn't been born from his revolution, only changed, only grown; in that knowledge, England found both comfort and a terrible, empty despair. That, too, he would have to weather until it was easier to forget. The child with the man. The sweet with the bitter. The past with the future.

Where the hell was his almond bark?

Ah, there it was, on the top shelf.

England got on his toes and reached.

 ** _The Fifth Day_**

America looked down at the tin.

"Aw, you shouldn't have," he said, and meant it.

England went a mottled red that never failed to amuse America. "Just take it, you idiot," he snarled, thrusting the tin forward once more. "Feel grateful you received anything! Especially since I know every single nation bought you something utterly ridiculous and wasteful just to pander to your whimsies."

America had stopped listening at "grateful." He took the tin, feeling the contents shake and rustle against dessert cup paper. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe they hadn't achieved sentience. Maybe he could pass them on to Russia. That hadn't gone over well last time, though.

And then, as he contemplated his options, England touched his arm. And he said, quiet but sincere, "Happy birthday."

Oh.

America stilled, his fingernail digging under the metal rim of the lid. He didn't look up. All at once, his stomach was unsettled and quaking, and it had nothing to do with the cookies. _Oh._

"America?"

 _I don't think you've ever said that to me,_ was on the tip of America's tongue, but he pulled it back behind his molars just in time. There was a tingling in his ears that told him they were probably pink, but he knew England wouldn't notice. England never noticed. England had spent over one hundred years with his head stuck in the sand, too busy trying to yank out of himself to see what was going on around him. Around America.

 _England's cookies._

His mind flickered over a memory, some half-melted vision of clear turquoise skies and icing that coated the roof of his mouth. The cookies in the tin were small, rounded black things with little red candies on them. It didn't matter what kind they were, or how they tasted. America crammed one inside, anyway, and chewed until his cheeks hurt.

When he dared to look, England's eyes were wide.

 _If I eat all the way to the bottom of the tin,_ thought America, _will you be happy again?_

 _I like to think you could be happy again on a day like today._

The party continued on behind them, somewhere on the other side of the doorway. The laughter rose and then trickled out into the night, embraced by the pervading silence beyond it. But for that moment, there was only America choking down the thick taste of cinnamon and char, and England, pale and watchful and standing there with something like an early dawn coming up behind his eyes, and _understand me_ , America begged, _see me see how this fills me please rend something from this because I'm too dumb I can't say it_ —

Crumbs. "S'good," he croaked.

And then England was—

 ** _Many, Many Years Ago_**

"England! England! Today's my birthday!"

"Oh?" It was a beautiful day for a birthday. England bent to meet the little boy, noting his dirty bare feet in the grass, feet that had grown too big once again for the shoes England brought him. But America was smiling, smiling, smiling, reaching for the container that England held out to him.

"Is this for me?" He shook the tin.

"Yes, they're cookies. Ginger snaps for your special day, America."

So bright that they hurt to look at, those eyes. "I love your cookies!"

 _I love that you love them,_ England wanted to say. But instead, he took America's face in his hands and kissed his forehead. Kissed him, there under the sun in the dizzy-blown rye.


End file.
